Method and system for secured inter-application communication in mobile devices

ABSTRACT

This disclosure describes a method for accessing network resources which includes receiving by a first application in a mobile computing device sign-in information from a user and enabling the user to sign in to a second application with the first application to access network resources from a resource server based on (a) a first application identification (ID) of the second application, (b) the user authorizing the second application to the resource server, and (c) receiving an authorization grant from the resource server to enable the second application to access the network resources, the mobile computing device coupled with the resource server via a network.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY AND RELATED APPLICATION DATA

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationNo. 61/708,366, filed on Oct. 1, 2012, entitled “System and Method forSecure Inter Application Communication in Mobile Devices,” by Desai etal., which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety and forall purposes.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present disclosure relates generally to network authentication, andmore specifically to the authentication associated with mobileapplications.

BACKGROUND

The popularity of mobile devices (e.g., smart phones, tablets, etc.) andmobile applications has increased significantly in recent years. Thereare mobile applications for different mobile operating systems (e.g.,iOS of Apple, Android of Google, Windows Mobile of Microsoft, etc.).Users may use the mobile applications to play games, read newsinformation, check emails, etc. Many corporations also develop mobileapplications so their employees can access company information, beconnected with other employees from anywhere, and increase theirproductivity by using their mobile devices. The information accessed bythe employees may be confidential information (e.g., marketinginformation, product information, etc.) Developers are constantly tryingto develop methods to identify and remove potential security risks toprotect the confidential information from being intercepted by hackersand malware.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The included drawings are for illustrative purposes and serve only toprovide examples of possible structures and process steps for thedisclosed techniques for secured inter-application communication andsingle sign-on mechanisms. These drawings in no way limit any changes inform and detail that may be made to implementations by one skilled inthe art without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure.

FIG. 1 shows an example computing device that may be used to implementsecured inter-application communication and single-sign on mechanism, inaccordance with some implementations.

FIG. 2 shows an example network environment that may be used with someimplementations.

FIG. 3 is a diagram that illustrates an example of establishing acommunication between two mobile applications using Inter-ProcessCommunication (IPC), in accordance with some implementations.

FIGS. 4A and 4B are event diagrams that illustrate a series of exampleevents that may enable a user to use the services of several mobileapplications with single sign-in information, in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram that illustrates example functional modules ofa mobile computing device, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram that illustrates example method of enablingsecured inter-application communication, in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram that illustrates example method of enablingsecured inter-application communication, in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 8A shows a system diagram that illustrates architectural componentsof an environment that may be used, in accordance with oneimplementation. in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 8B shows a system diagram that further illustrates architecturalcomponents of an environment that may be used, in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 9 shows a system diagram illustrating the architecture of amulti-tenant database environment, in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 10 shows another system diagram further illustrating thearchitecture of a multi-tenant database environment, in accordance withsome implementations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Applications of systems and methods according to one or moreimplementations are described in this section. These examples are beingprovided solely to add context and aid in the understanding of thepresent disclosure. It will thus be apparent to one skilled in the artthat the techniques described herein may be practiced without some orall of these specific details. In other instances, well known processsteps have not been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarilyobscuring the present disclosure. Other applications are possible, suchthat the following examples should not be taken as definitive orlimiting either in scope or setting.

In the following detailed description, references are made to theaccompanying drawings, which form a part of the description and in whichare shown, by way of illustration, specific implementations. Althoughthese implementations are described in sufficient detail to enable oneskilled in the art to practice the disclosure, it is understood thatthese examples are not limiting, such that other implementations may beused and changes may be made without departing from the spirit and scopeof the disclosure.

As used herein, the term “multi-tenant database system” refers to thosesystems in which various elements of hardware and software of thedatabase system may be shared by one or more customers. For example, agiven application server may simultaneously process requests for a greatnumber of customers, and a given database table may store rows for apotentially much greater number of customers.

In some implementations, techniques described herein may facilitate asecured inter-application communication among mobile applicationsrunning on the same mobile computing device. The communication may beestablished by an operating system running on the mobile computingdevice. A first end point may be assigned to a source mobileapplication. The first end point may be associated with a first portidentification (ID). Information about the first end point may becommunicated to a target mobile application by invoking the targetmobile application. The target mobile application may transferinformation to the first mobile application via the first end point.

In some implementations, techniques described herein may facilitate asecured inter-application communication among mobile applicationsrunning on the same mobile computing device. The communication may beestablished by an operating system running on the mobile computingdevice. A first end point may be assigned to a source mobileapplication. The first end point may be associated with a first portidentification (ID). Information about the first end point may becommunicated to a target mobile application by invoking the targetmobile application. Based on the invocation, a second end point may beassigned to the target mobile application. The second end point may beassociated with a second port ID. The first end point may be configuredto be associated with the second end point by the operating system.Information transferred from the first mobile application to the secondmobile application may be performed via the end point. Informationtransferred from the second mobile application to the first mobileapplication may be performed via the first end point.

In some implementations, techniques described herein may facilitateverifying a mobile application as a trusted mobile application by aserver or cloud. A mobile application may be associated with a uniqueidentification associated with an application distribution center. Theunique identification may have been verified as being associated withtrusted mobile application and stored in the server or cloud. Based onthe mobile application having been installed on a mobile computingdevice, the unique identification may be communicated to the server orcloud by the mobile computing device to enable the mobile computingdevice to verify whether the mobile application can be trusted.

In some implementations, techniques described herein may facilitate asingle sign-on mechanism. A user may sign on to a web server via asource mobile application. The user may cause a target mobileapplication to invoke the source mobile application. The source mobileapplication may request the web server to authenticate the targetapplication. Upon receiving an authorization grant from the web server,the target mobile application can access information from the web serveron behalf of the user without the user having to provide sign-oninformation to the target application.

In some implementations, techniques described herein may facilitate asource mobile application to request a target mobile application toperform operations as if the target mobile application is an extensionof the source mobile application. A user may sign on to a web serverusing a source mobile application. The target mobile application may beactivated using the single sign-on mechanism and perform functions onbehalf of the user using the first mobile application as a proxy.Control may be transferred from the target mobile application to thesource mobile application to enable the source mobile application toperform functions on behalf of the user using the target mobileapplication as a proxy. Using the same scheme, the source mobileapplication may be configured to use the target mobile application as agateway to invoke other mobile applications.

FIG. 1 is a diagram of an example computer system that may be used withsome implementations of the present invention. The computing system 102is only one example of a suitable computing system, such as a mobilecomputing device, and is not intended to suggest any limitation as tothe scope of use or functionality of the design. Neither should thecomputing system 102 be interpreted as having any dependency orrequirement relating to any one or combination of componentsillustrated. The design is operational with numerous other generalpurpose or special purpose computing systems. Examples of well-knowncomputing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may besuitable for use with the design include, but are not limited to,personal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices,multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes,programmable consumer electronics, minicomputers, mainframe computers,distributed computing environments that include any of the above systemsor devices, and the like. For example, the computing device 102 may beimplemented as a mobile computing device such as one that is configuredto run with an operating system (e.g., iOS) developed by Apple Inc. ofCupertino, Calif. or an operating system (e.g., Android) that isdeveloped by Google Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.

Some implementations of the present invention may be described in thegeneral context of computing device executable instructions, such asprogram modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, programmodules include routines, programs, objects, components, datastructures, etc. that performs particular tasks or implement particularabstract data types. Those skilled in the art can implement thedescription and/or FIGS. herein as computer-executable instructions,which can be embodied on any form of computing machine readable mediadiscussed below.

Some implementations of the present invention may also be practiced indistributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remoteprocessing devices that are linked through a communications network. Ina distributed computing environment, program modules may be located inboth local and remote computer storage media including memory storagedevices.

Referring to FIG. 1, the computing device 102 may include, but are notlimited to, a processing unit 120 having one or more processing cores, asystem memory 130, and a system bus 121 that couples various systemcomponents including the system memory 130 to the processing unit 120.The system bus 121 may be any of several types of bus structuresincluding a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and alocal bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way ofexample, and not limitation, such architectures include IndustryStandard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus,Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA)locale bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus also knownas Mezzanine bus.

The computing device 102 typically includes a variety of computerreadable media. Computer readable media can be any available media thatcan be accessed by computing device 102 and includes both volatile andnonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media. By way of example,and not limitation, computer readable media may store information suchas computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules orother data. Computer storage media include, but are not limited to, RAM,ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digitalversatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes,magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices,or any other medium which can be used to store the desired informationand which can be accessed by computing device 102. Communication mediatypically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, orprogram modules.

The system memory 130 may include computer storage media in the form ofvolatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 131and random access memory (RAM) 132. A basic input/output system (BIOS)133, containing the basic routines that help to transfer informationbetween elements within computing device 102, such as during start-up,is typically stored in ROM 131. RAM 132 typically contains data and/orprogram modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presentlybeing operated on by processing unit 120. By way of example, and notlimitation, FIG. 1 also illustrates operating system 134, applicationprograms 135, other program modules 136, and program data 137.

The computing device 102 may also include other removable/non-removablevolatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only,FIG. 1 also illustrates a hard disk drive 141 that reads from or writesto non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, a magnetic disk drive 151that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile magnetic disk 152,and an optical disk drive 155 that reads from or writes to a removable,nonvolatile optical disk 156 such as, for example, a CD ROM or otheroptical media. Other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatilecomputer storage media that can be used in the exemplary operatingenvironment include, but are not limited to, USB drives and devices,magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks,digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like. Thehard disk drive 141 is typically connected to the system bus 121 througha non-removable memory interface such as interface 140, and magneticdisk drive 151 and optical disk drive 155 are typically connected to thesystem bus 121 by a removable memory interface, such as interface 150.

The drives and their associated computer storage media discussed aboveand illustrated in FIG. 1, provide storage of computer readableinstructions, data structures, program modules and other data for thecomputing device 102. In FIG. 1, for example, hard disk drive 141 isillustrated as storing operating system 144, application programs 145,other program modules 146, and program data 147. Note that thesecomponents can either be the same as or different from operating system134, application programs 135, other program modules 136, and programdata 137. The operating system 144, the application programs 145, theother program modules 146, and the program data 147 are given differentnumeric identification here to illustrate that, at a minimum, they aredifferent copies.

A user may enter commands and information into the computing device 102through input devices such as a keyboard 162, a microphone 163, and apointing device 161, such as a mouse, trackball or touch pad or touchscreen. Other input devices (not shown) may include a joystick, gamepad, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are oftenconnected to the processing unit 120 through a user input interface 160that is coupled with the system bus 121, but may be connected by otherinterface and bus structures, such as a parallel port, game port or auniversal serial bus (USB). A monitor 191 or other type of displaydevice is also connected to the system bus 121 via an interface, such asa video interface 190. In addition to the monitor, computers may alsoinclude other peripheral output devices such as speakers 197 and printer196, which may be connected through an output peripheral interface 190.

The computing device 102 may operate in a networked environment usinglogical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remotecomputer 180. The remote computer 180 may be a personal computer, ahand-held device, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device orother common network node, and typically includes many or all of theelements described above relative to the computing device 102. Thelogical connections depicted in FIG. 1 include a local area network(LAN) 171 and a wide area network (WAN) 173, but may also include othernetworks. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices,enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, the computing device 102 maybe connected to the LAN 171 through a network interface or adapter 170.When used in a WAN networking environment, the computing device 102typically includes a modem 172 or other means for establishingcommunications over the WAN 173, such as the Internet. The modem 172,which may be internal or external, may be connected to the system bus121 via the user-input interface 160, or other appropriate mechanism. Ina networked environment, program modules depicted relative to thecomputing device 102, or portions thereof, may be stored in a remotememory storage device. By way of example, and not limitation, FIG. 1illustrates remote application programs 185 as residing on remotecomputer 180. It will be appreciated that the network connections shownare exemplary and other means of establishing a communications linkbetween the computers may be used.

It should be noted that some embodiments of the present invention may becarried out on a computer system such as that described with respect toFIG. 1. However, some embodiments of the present invention may becarried out on a server, a computer devoted to message handling,handheld devices, or on a distributed system in which different portionsof the present design may be carried out on different parts of thedistributed computing system.

Another device that may be coupled with the system bus 121 is a powersupply such as a battery or a Direct Current (DC) power supply) andAlternating Current (AC) adapter circuit. The DC power supply may be abattery, a fuel cell, or similar DC power source needs to be rechargedon a periodic basis. The communication module (or modem) 172 may employa Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) to establish a wirelesscommunication channel. The communication module 172 may implement awireless networking standard such as Institute of Electrical andElectronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard, IEEE std. 802.11-1999,published by IEEE in 1999.

Examples of mobile computing devices may be a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a Netbook, a smart phone, a personal digital assistant, orother similar device with on board processing power and wirelesscommunications ability that is powered by a Direct Current (DC) powersource that supplies DC voltage to the mobile computing device and thatis solely within the mobile computing device and needs to be rechargedon a periodic basis, such as a fuel cell or a battery.

FIG. 2 is a diagram of an example network environment that may be usedwith some implementations of the present invention. Diagram 200 includesmobile computing devices 205 and 210 which may be connected to thenetwork 250 via a cellular connection or via a Wi-Fi router (not shown).The network 250 may be the Internet. The mobile computing devices 205and 210 may be coupled with one or more server computing devices 255 and260 via the network 250. The server computing devices 255 and 260 may beweb servers associated with service providers. For example, a user usingthe mobile computing device 205 (e.g., iPhone) may connect to the servercomputing device 255 (e.g., App Store server) and log into theapplication distribution center 257 (e.g., App Store) to download mobileapplications 215. The server computing device 255 may be referred to asan application distribution server because it is configured to includelogic of the application distribution center 257. As another example,the server computing device 260 may be associated with a largecorporation (e.g., salesforce.com), and an employee of the corporationmay use the mobile computing device 210 to stay connected with theircolleagues by logging into an application 265 (e.g., Chatterapplication) hosted on the server computing device 260. For someimplementations, the server computing device 260 (also referred to as averification server) may be configured to maintain a white list 270 oftrusted mobile applications that may be downloaded and installed ontothe mobile computing devices 205 and 210. For some implementations, theserver computing device 260 may also be configured to include averification module 275 to perform verification of the mobileapplications based on the white list 270.

The mobile computing device 210 may be configured to run with one ormore mobile applications 215. These mobile applications may have beenpre-installed, or they may have been downloaded from appropriateapplication distribution centers (e.g., App Store of Apple Inc., GooglePlay of Google Inc., AppExchange of salesforce.com, etc.). When a userdownloads and installs a mobile application 215 onto a mobile computingdevice 210, the mobile application 215 may be stored in a memory of themobile computing device 210. A representation (e.g., icon) of thatmobile application may also be displayed on a touch-sensitive display220 of the mobile computing device so that it can be invoked by theuser. The mobile application 215 may be invoked by tapping on an area ofthe touch-sensitive display 220 where the representation is displayed.When the mobile application 215 is associated with a corporation (e.g.,salesforce.com), the user may need to provide sign-in information (e.g.,user name and password) to sign in and access information associatedwith the corporation.

There may be multiple mobile applications running in a mobile computingdevice 210, with one running in the foreground while the others runningin the background. Only the mobile application running in the foregroundcan interact with the user. There may be times when it is necessary forone mobile application (referred to as a source application) tocommunicate with another mobile application (referred to as a targetapplication). For example, one mobile application may want to shareinformation or use the functionality available with the other mobileapplication. Under the iOS environment, it may be possible for thesource application to use the custom Uniform Resource Locator (URL)scheme to communicate with and transfer information with the targetapplication. The custom URL scheme allows a mobile application toregister its custom protocol so that other mobile applications can useit. For example, a Chatter mobile application from salesforce.com of SanFrancisco, Calif. may register a custom URL identifier “chatter://” anda URL scheme “signin” to enable another mobile application to use thecustom URL scheme “chatter://signin” to connect to it. A FedEx mobileapplication may register a custom URL identifier “fedex://” and a URLscheme “tracking” to enable another mobile application to use the customURL scheme “fedex://tracking” to track status of a particular delivery.The process performed by the FedEx mobile application may be referred toas handling an event.

The custom URL may be opened inside the source application by includingthe information (e.g., FedEx tracking number) to be transferred in anobject and including a code to call the method “openURL” which thenlaunches the specified target application and transfers information inthe object to the target application. When a custom URL associated witha target application is called from a source application, the targetapplication is launched in the foreground and control is transferredfrom the source application to the target application to handle the“event.” The source application may be placed in the background runningan “event loop” until the “event” is completed by the target applicationand control is transferred back to the source application.

It may be necessary for the target application to be downloaded andinstalled on the mobile computing device 210 and for the custom URLassociated with the target application to be registered for the call tothe method “openURL” to be successfully executed. To register a customURL, the target application includes information about the custom URLscheme that the target application supports in its information propertylist or “Info.plist” file. The “Info.plist” file may also include otherinformation (referred to as metadata) about the mobile application. The“Info.plist” file is included in a “bundle” which may also include otherinformation (e.g., code, resources, etc.) related to the mobileapplication. A unique bundle ID may be specified by the developer of themobile application. When the mobile application is submitted to theapplication distribution center (e.g., App Store), the bundle ID is madepart of a unique application ID which makes the mobile applicationunique in the application distribution center (e.g., App Store).

It may be noted that even though each mobile application in theapplication distribution center is associated with a unique bundle IDand application ID, it may be possible that some mobile applications mayhave similar custom URL scheme in their “Info.plist” files. Thus, if twomobile applications having the same custom URL scheme in their“Info.plist” files happen to be downloaded and installed on the mobilecomputing device 210, the operating system in the mobile computingdevice 210 may be confused as to which of the two mobile applications isthe correct target application to invoke when the custom URL scheme iscalled by a source application. It may be possible that the custom URLscheme of the mobile application most recently installed is invoked, orit may be possible that the custom URL scheme of the mobile applicationinstalled earlier is invoked. A malicious mobile application may includea custom URL scheme similar to a custom URL scheme of a legitimatetarget application and intercept the information transferred by thesource application. This situation exposes a security risk in the URLscheme and to the confidential information transferred by the sourceapplication.

FIG. 3 is a diagram that illustrates an example of establishing acommunication between two mobile applications using Inter-ProcessCommunication (IPC), in accordance with some implementations. Mobilecomputing device 300 may include two mobile applications 305 and 310 andmay be coupled with a web server 315 via a network. For someimplementations, instead of using the custom URL scheme described withFIG. 2, IPC may be used to enable the mobile applications to shareinformation and/or to use the functionality of one another. In thecurrent example, in order for the mobile application 305 to invoke themobile application 310, a bi-directional channel may need to beestablished. The mobile application 305 may request the operating systemto open a first socket (or end point) and assign a port with a port ID307 to that socket. The first socket is associated with the mobileapplication 305, and may be used by the mobile application 305 to acceptincoming connection from the mobile application 310. The mobileapplication 305 may then request the operating system to let the mobileapplication 310 become aware of the first socket and its associated portID 307.

Upon learning about the first socket and the port ID 307, the mobileapplication 310 may request the operating system to open a second socketand assign a port with a port ID 312 to the second socket. The secondsocket is associated with the mobile application 310. The mobileapplication 310 may then request the operating system to connect thesecond socket to the first socket. A connection request may then be sentto the mobile application 305 via the port ID 307. An acknowledgment ofthe connection request may then be sent to the mobile application 310via the port ID 312, and a bi-directional channel may be establishedbetween the two mobile applications 305 and 310. The mobile applications305 and 310 can then transfer information to one another by writing theinformation to its respective socket. By using the IPC, thecommunication and sharing of information between the two mobileapplications 305 and 310 may be more secured comparing to using the URLscheme.

FIGS. 4A and 4B are event diagrams that illustrate a series of exampleevents that may enable a user to use the services of several mobileapplications with single sign-in information, in accordance with someimplementations. In this example, a user 400 may be using a mobilecomputing device such as the mobile computing device 300 illustrated inFIG. 3. The mobile computing device 300 may include two mobileapplications: mobile application 405 and mobile application 410. Bothmobile applications 405 and 410 may be associated with a web server 415and may access information (e.g., customer data, etc.) from the webserver 415 on the user's behalf. The web server 415 may also be referredto as a resource server. The web server 415 may be associated with anentity that provisions authorization. For example, the mobileapplication 405 may be the salesforce.com Chatter downloadable mobileapplication of salesforce.com, the mobile application 410 may be adownloadable third party mobile application such as a FedEx shippingapplication developed to integrate with the salesforce.com platform, andthe web server 415 may be a salesforce.com server.

For some implementations, the Open Authorization (OAuth) protocol may beused. The current version of the OAuth protocol is 2.0 and is an openstandard published in October 2012 by the Internet Engineering TaskForce (IETF) organization as RFC 6749. OAuth may be used as a mechanismto enable the mobile application 410 to access information from the webserver 415 on behalf of the user 400 without the user 400 having toprovide the user's authentication information (e.g., username andpassword) to the mobile application 410. For example, the Chatter APIfrom salesforce.com uses OAuth to securely identify the mobileapplication before connecting to the salesforce.com server. Instead ofthe mobile application having to store the user's sign-in information,the mobile application may prompt the user to sign in using a standardsalesforce.com page, which returns an access token to mobileapplication. The mobile application may use this access token to accessChatter API Web services.

Each of the mobile applications 405 and 410 may need to be registeredwith the web server 415 to receive an API key (also referred to asclient ID to identify the mobile application with the web server 415)and an API secret which may be subsequently used to request the webserver 415 for an access token. The type of information to be accessed(also referred to as scope or permission) from the web server 415 by amobile application may also need to be specified during the registrationprocess.

As illustrated in FIG. 4A, event 450 indicates the user 400 logging intothe mobile application 405 using the user's sign-in information (e.g.,username and password). Event 452 indicates the user 400 downloading themobile application 410 (assuming it has not been previously downloaded).The user 400 may then launch the mobile application 410 by tapping onthe touch-sensitive screen.

Event 454 indicates the mobile application 410 displaying to the user400 a sign-in screen with option to sign in with the first mobileapplication 405. This is instead of having to provide sign-oninformation to the second mobile application 410. Event 456 indicatesthe user 400 responding to the mobile application 410 that the user 400wants to use option to sign in with the mobile application 405 (e.g.,the Chatter downloadable mobile application).

Based on receiving the response from the user 400 via the event 456, themobile application 410 may generate encryption information that includesa public and private key pair 458. Event 460 indicates the mobileapplication 410 invoking the mobile application 405 by including in itscode a call to the method “openURL” and using a custom URL schemeassociated with the mobile application 405. As described herein, thecustom URL scheme associated with the mobile application 405 may bestored in the “Info.plist” file of the mobile application 405. In thecurrent example, the custom URL scheme is shown as “chatter://signin”.The call to the method “openURL” may be associated with an object 462which may include the public key of the public and private key pair 458.The object 462 may also include a redirect URI (resource name andlocation) and a client ID. The redirect URI indicates where the user 400will be redirected after web server 415 approving or rejecting a requestby the mobile application 410. The client ID is the API key assigned tothe mobile application 410 by the web server 415 when the mobileapplication 410 is registered with the web server 415.

Event 464 indicates the mobile application 405 processing the “openURL”call by the mobile application 410. The mobile application 405 mayidentify the bundle ID 466 associated with the mobile application 410and include the bundle ID 466 in a message sent to the web server 415,as indicated by event 468. The message may include a request for themetadata associated with the mobile application 410.

For some implementations, the web server 415 may be configured to storeinformation about the mobile applications that are considered to besecured (referred to as secured mobile applications). For example, theweb server 415 may maintain a white list 469 of the mobile applicationsthat have been verified as secured. The information about a securedmobile application may include its bundle ID. The web server 415 mayalso be configured to store the metadata associated with the securedmobile applications. Other information about the secured mobileapplications may also be stored. The web server 415 may be configured touse the bundle ID 466 received from the mobile application 405 todetermine if the bundle ID 466 is associated with a secured mobileapplication, as indicated by event 470. Based on the web server 415successfully validating the bundle ID 466 as being associated with thesecured mobile application 410, event 472 indicates the web server 415transferring the metadata about the mobile application 410 to the mobileapplication 405.

The events included in FIG. 4B continue from the events included in FIG.4A. Referring to FIG. 4B, event 474 indicates the mobile application 405displaying information on the touch-sensitive screen to let the user 400authorizes the mobile application 405 for authentication. For example,an image or quick action icon may be displayed. Event 476 indicates theuser 400 responding to the mobile application 405 that the user 400authorizes (e.g., by swiping on the quick action icon) the mobileapplication 405 for authentication. An authorization code may begenerated based on the user's swipe gesture during the event 476.

Based on the user 400 authorizing the mobile application 405 forauthentication, the mobile application 405 may initiate a request anauthorization to allow the mobile application 410 to login to the webserver 415, as indicated by event 478.

Event 480 indicates the web server 415 responding to the request fromthe mobile application 405 with an authorization grant allowing themobile application 410 to login. Event 482 indicates the mobileapplication 405 opening a webview for the OAuth with session with theweb server 415.

Event 484 indicates the web server 415 displaying the authorization pageto the user 400 for the mobile application 410. During event 486, theuser 400 is presented with an option to allow or deny access. In thecurrent example, the user 400 authorizes the mobile application 410 tothe web server 415 and an authorization grant is submitted.

Event 488 indicates the web server 415 providing a token response to themobile application 405. This token response may include an access token490 for the mobile application 410.

The token response may be encrypted by the mobile application 405 usingthe public key generated by the mobile application 410. This generatesthe encrypted token response 490. Event 492 indicates the mobileapplication 405 providing the encrypted token response 490 to the mobileapplication 410. The encrypted token response 490 may then be decryptedby the mobile application 410 by using its private key from the publicand private key pair 458 (shown in FIG. 4A). This generates a decryptedtoken response 494. The decrypted token response 494 may include anaccess token and a refresh token, and both tokens may be saved by themobile application 410.

Event 496 indicates the mobile application 410 accessing information inthe web server 415 using the access token from the decrypted tokenresponse 494 by calling the appropriate web server API. Event 497indicates the web server 415 providing the information to the mobileapplication 410 via an API response. Event 498 indicates the mobileapplication 410 delivering its services and features to the user 400.

For some implementations, instead of having the mobile application 410generating the public-private key pair 458 and using it to create theencrypted token 490 and the decrypted token 494, the user 400 may beprompted to provide a user secret code during the event 486 and a copymay be sent to the mobile computing devices 405 and 410. The user secretcode may then be used by the mobile application 405 to encode the accesstoken received from the event 488. The encoded access token may then besent to the mobile application 410 during the event 492, and thendecoded by the mobile application 410.

For some implementations, the events described in FIGS. 4A and 4B may beimplemented to enable the mobile application 405 to be used as a proxyto enable the user 400 to extend the functionality of the mobileapplication 405 with the functionality of the mobile application 410.This is advantageous because the size of the mobile application 405 maybe kept small while its functionality may be enriched by beingcomplementary to the functionality offered by the mobile application410. The user 400 may sign on to a web server 415 using the mobileapplication 405 (e.g., event 450). The user 400 may cause the mobileapplication 410 to invoke the mobile application 405 (e.g., events 456,460). The mobile application 405 may request the web server 415 toauthenticate the mobile application 410 (e.g., events 468, 472). Uponreceiving an access token from the web server 415 (events 488 and 492),the user 400 may use the functions and features of the target mobileapplication 410 to access information from the web server 415 on behalfof the user 400 without the user having to provide sign-on informationto the mobile application 410.

For some implementations, the mobile application 410 may be used as aproxy to the mobile application 405 to enable the mobile application 405to deliver services to the user 400. For some implementations, using thesame scheme, the mobile application 410 may be configured to invokeanother mobile application (not shown), and operates as a gateway to theconnection to this other mobile application. Control may then betransferred from the mobile application 410 to the other mobileapplication to deliver services to the user 400.

For some implementations, it may be possible that the communicationsthat occur between the mobile applications 405 and 410 shown in FIGS. 4Aand 4B are based on the IPC protocol described with FIG. 3. For example,instead of using the method “openURL” and the custom URL scheme“chatter://signin” in the event 460, the mobile application 410 maytransfer the appropriate information to the mobile application 405 via asocket connection established using the IPC.

Although the above description refer to various servers such as theapplication distribution server, the resource server, and theverification server, it may be possible that the functionalities of oneor more of these servers may be combined.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram that illustrates example functional modules ofa mobile computing device, in accordance with some implementations.Mobile computing device 500 may include many of the functional modulesdescribed in FIG. 1 and may also include sign in module 505,identification module 510, registration module 515, IPC communicationmodule 520, custom URL scheme module 525, encryption-decryption module530 and authorization module 535. Although not shown, other modules mayalso be included in the mobile computing device 500 to enable it toperform the functions as described herein. The sign in module 505 may beconfigured to provide a user (e.g., user 400 shown in FIGS. 4A and 4B)an option to one mobile application with another mobile application(e.g., event 454).

The identification module 510 may be configured to enable a mobileapplication to be assigned an identification number (e.g., bundle ID)that is unique in an application distribution center. The registrationmodule 515 may be configured to enable a mobile application to beregistered with a web server (e.g., web server 415) to obtain an API keyand API secret so that they can be used to obtain an access token fromthe web server. The IPC communication module 520 may be configured toenable a mobile application to engage in a secured communication withanother mobile application (as described in FIG. 3). The custom URLscheme 525 module may be configured to enable a mobile application toset up entry points that may be called by another mobile application(e.g., event 460). The encryption-decryption module 530 may beconfigured to enable a mobile application to generate a public andprivate key pair to securely protect an access token (e.g., events 488and 492). The authorization module 535 may be configured to enable amobile application to participate in an authentication and authorizationprotocol (e.g., OAuth protocol) with a web server (e.g., web server 415)such as, for example, the steps of requesting for an access token and arefresh token and the process of using the refresh token to request fora new access token, etc.

Although some of the modules in FIG. 5 are illustrated as individualmodules, it may be possible that the function of two or more of thesemodules may be combined into one module, or that the function of onemodule may be divided into two or more modules, depending on theimplementation. Other modules may also be used to enable the mobilecomputing device 500 to participate in the operations described withFIGS. 3, 4A and 4B.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram that illustrates an example process of enablingsecured inter-application communication, in accordance with someimplementations. The process may enable two mobile applications runningin a mobile computing device to share information securely. The processmay start at block 605 where a first socket may be assigned to a firstmobile application. At block 610, a second socket may be assigned to asecond mobile application. The assignment of the first socket and thesecond socket may be performed by an operating system running in themobile computing device. At block 615, the first socket may beassociated with the second socket. At block 620, the first mobileapplication may be enabled to transfer information to the second mobileapplication using the second socket. At block 625, the second mobileapplication may be enabled to transfer information to the first mobileapplication using the first socket. As described with FIG. 3, the firstsocket may be assigned to a first port ID, and the second socket may beassigned to a second port ID.

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram that illustrates an example process of usingsingle sign-on information to deliver services, in accordance with someimplementations. The process may be performed by a mobile computingdevice having two or more mobile applications. The mobile computingdevice may be coupled with a web server via a network such as, forexample, those described in FIGS. 2, 8A, 8B, 9 and 10. The process maystart at block 705 where a user may be enabled to sign in to a firstmobile application, and then at block 710 be able sign in to a secondmobile application with the first mobile application and without havingto provide sign-on information. At block 712, the second app may beconfigured to generate a public-private key pair for encryption. Atblock 715, the second mobile application is configured to invoke thefirst mobile application and send the public key to the first mobileapplication. The public key and private key will be used in subsequentsteps to encrypt and decrypt an access token. At block 720, the secondmobile application is configured to send the first mobile applicationits unique ID. The unique ID is be used in a subsequent stop to validatethat the second mobile application is a trusted application.

At block 725, the first mobile application is configured to cause thesecond mobile application to be verified by the web server. This mayinclude sending the unique ID of the second mobile application to theweb server. At block 730, the first mobile application is configured toreceive information about the second mobile application from the webserver. At block 735, the first mobile application is configured toenable the user to authorize the second mobile application. At block740, with the user's authorization, the first mobile application may beconfigured to request for an authorization to allow the second mobileapplication to login to the web server. In response to the request, anauthorization grant may be sent by the webserver. The authorizationgrant may enable the second mobile application to log into the webserver.

At block 745, the first mobile application may be configured to enablethe user to authorize the second mobile application with the web server.This may include submitting the authorization grant to the web server.At block 750, the first mobile application is configured to receive anaccess token from the web server.

At block 755, the second mobile application is configured to accessinformation from the web server on the user's behalf by using the accesstoken. Thus, the process described with the flow diagram of FIG. 7 mayenable the second mobile application to access information and provideservices to the user without the user having to sign-on to the secondmobile application. The ability of the second mobile application toaccess the information is based on the availability of the second accesstoken. If the user wants to stop the second mobile application fromaccessing the information on the web server on the user's behalf, theaccess token may be revoked.

FIG. 8A shows a system diagram illustrating architectural components ofan environment that may be used, in accordance with one implementation.A client machine located in the cloud 804 (or Internet) may communicatewith the environment 800 via one or more edge routers 808 and 812. Theedge routers may communicate with one or more core switches 820 and 824via firewall 816. The core switches may communicate with a load balancer828, which may distribute server load over different pods, such as thepods 840 and 844. The pods 840 and 844, which may each include one ormore servers and/or other computing resources, may perform dataprocessing and other operations used to enable services such as, forexample, secured inter-application communication services and singlesign-on services. Communication with the pods 840, 844 may be conductedvia pod switches 832 and 836. Components of the environment 800 maycommunicate with a database storage system 856 via a database firewall848 and a database switch 852.

As shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, accessing the environment 800 may involvecommunications transmitted among a variety of different hardware and/orsoftware components. Further, the environment 800 is a simplifiedrepresentation of an actual secured environment that may enableproviding secured inter-application communication services and singlesign-on services. For example, while only one or two devices of eachtype are shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, some implementations of theenvironment 800 may include anywhere from one to many devices of eachtype. Also, the environment 800 need not include each device shown inFIGS. 8A and 8B, or may include additional devices not shown in FIGS. 8Aand 8B.

Moreover, one or more of the devices in the environment 800 may beimplemented on the same physical device or on different hardware. Somedevices may be implemented using hardware or a combination of hardwareand software. Thus, terms such as “data processing apparatus,”“machine,” “server” and “device” as used herein are not limited to asingle hardware device, but rather include any hardware and softwareconfigured to provide the described functionality.

The cloud 804 is intended to refer to a data network or plurality ofdata networks, often including the Internet. Client machines located inthe cloud 804 may communicate with the environment 800 to accessservices provided by the environment 800. For example, client machinesmay access the environment 800 to retrieve, store, edit, and/or processinformation.

In some implementations, the edge routers 808 and 812 may route packetsbetween the cloud 804 and other components of the environment 800. Theedge routers 808 and 812 may employ the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).The BGP is the core routing protocol of the Internet. The edge routers808 and 812 may maintain a table of IP networks or ‘prefixes’ whichdesignate network reachability among autonomous systems on the Internet.

In one or more implementations, the firewall 816 may protect the innercomponents of the environment 800 from Internet traffic. The firewall816 may block, permit, or deny access to the inner components of theenvironment 800 based upon a set of rules and other criteria. Thefirewall 816 may act as one or more of a packet filter, an applicationgateway, a stateful filter, a proxy server, or any other type offirewall.

In some implementations, the core switches 820 and 824 are high-capacityswitches that transfer packets within the environment 800. The coreswitches 820 and 824 may be configured as network bridges that quicklyroute data between different components within the environment 800. Insome implementations, the use of two or more core switches 820 and 824may provide redundancy and/or reduced latency.

In some implementations, the pods 840 and 844 may perform the core dataprocessing and service functions provided by the environment 800. Eachpod may include various types of hardware and/or software computingresources. An example of the pod architecture is discussed in greaterdetail with reference to FIG. 8B.

In some implementations, communication between the pods 840 and 844 maybe conducted via the pod switches 832 and 836. The pod switches 832 and836 may facilitate communication between the pods 840 and 844 and clientmachines located in the cloud 804, for example via core switches 820 and824. Also, the pod switches 832 and 836 may facilitate communicationbetween the pods 840 and 844 and the database storage 856.

In some implementations, the load balancer 828 may distribute workloadbetween the pods 840 and 844. Balancing the service requests between thepods may assist in improving the use of resources, increasingthroughput, reducing response times, and/or reducing overhead. The loadbalancer 828 may include multilayer switches to analyze and forwardtraffic.

In some implementations, access to the database storage 856 may beguarded by a database firewall 848. The database firewall 848 may act asa computer application firewall operating at the database applicationlayer of a protocol stack. The database firewall 848 may protect thedatabase storage 856 from application attacks such as structure querylanguage (SQL) injection, database rootkits, and unauthorizedinformation disclosure.

In some implementations, the database firewall 848 may include a hostusing one or more forms of reverse proxy services to proxy trafficbefore passing it to a gateway router. The database firewall 848 mayinspect the contents of database traffic and block certain content ordatabase requests. The database firewall 848 may work on the SQLapplication level atop the TCP/IP stack, managing applications'connection to the database or SQL management interfaces as well asintercepting and enforcing packets traveling to or from a databasenetwork or application interface.

In some implementations, communication with the database storage system856 may be conducted via the database switch 852. The multi-tenantdatabase system 856 may include more than one hardware and/or softwarecomponents for handling database queries. Accordingly, the databaseswitch 852 may direct database queries transmitted by other componentsof the environment 800 (e.g., the pods 840 and 844) to the correctcomponents within the database storage system 856.

In some implementations, the database storage system 856 is a databasesystem shared by many different organizations. The database system mayemploy a multi-tenant approach, a virtualized approach, or any othertype of database approach. A database system that may be used to supportthe services offered by the environment 800 is discussed in greaterdetail with reference to FIGS. 9 and 10.

FIG. 8B shows a system diagram illustrating the architecture of the pod844, in accordance with one implementation. The pod 844 may be used torender services to a user of the environment 800.

In some implementations, each pod may include a variety of serversand/or other systems. The pod 844 includes one or more content batchservers 864, content search servers 868, query servers 882, file forceservers 886, access control system (ACS) servers 880, batch servers 884,and app servers 888. Also, the pod 844 includes database instances 890,quick file systems (QFS) 892, and indexers 894. In one or moreimplementations, some or all communication between the servers in thepod 844 may be transmitted via the switch 836.

In some implementations, the application servers 888 may include ahardware and/or software framework dedicated to the execution ofprocedures (e.g., programs, routines, scripts) for supporting theconstruction of applications provided by the environment 800 via the pod844. Some such procedures may include operations for providing theservices described herein.

The content batch servers 864 may requests internal to the pod. Theserequests may be long-running and/or not tied to a particular customer.For example, the content batch servers 864 may handle requests relatedto log mining, cleanup work, and maintenance tasks.

The content search servers 868 may provide query and indexer functions.For example, the functions provided by the content search servers 868may allow users to search through content stored in the environment 800.

The Fileforce servers 886 may manage requests information stored in theFileforce storage 898. The Fileforce storage 898 may store informationsuch as documents, images, and basic large objects (BLOBs). By managingrequests for information using the Fileforce servers 886, the imagefootprint on the database may be reduced.

The query servers 882 may be used to retrieve information from one ormore file systems. For example, the query server 882 may receiverequests for information from the app servers 888 and then transmitinformation queries to the NFS 896 located outside the pod.

The pod 844 may share a database instance 890 configured as amulti-tenant environment in which different organizations share accessto the same database. Additionally, services rendered by the pod 844 mayrequire various hardware and/or software resources. In someimplementations, the ACS servers 880 may control access to data,hardware resources, or software resources.

In some implementations, the batch servers 884 may process batch jobs,which are used to run tasks at specified times. Thus, the batch servers884 may transmit instructions to other servers, such as the app servers888, to trigger the batch jobs.

In some implementations, the QFS 892 may be an open source file systemavailable from Sun Microsystems® of Santa Clara, Calif. The QFS mayserve as a rapid-access file system for storing and accessinginformation available within the pod 844. The QFS 892 may support somevolume management capabilities, allowing many disks to be groupedtogether into a file system. File system metadata can be kept on aseparate set of disks, which may be useful for streaming applicationswhere long disk seeks cannot be tolerated. Thus, the QFS system maycommunicate with one or more content search servers 868 and/or indexers894 to identify, retrieve, move, and/or update data stored in thenetwork file systems 896 and/or other storage systems.

In some implementations, one or more query servers 882 may communicatewith the NFS 896 to retrieve and/or update information stored outside ofthe pod 844. The NFS 896 may allow servers located in the pod 844 toaccess information to access files over a network in a manner similar tohow local storage is accessed.

In some implementations, queries from the query servers 882 may betransmitted to the NFS 896 via the load balancer 828, which maydistribute resource requests over various resources available in theenvironment 800. The NFS 896 may also communicate with the QFS 892 toupdate the information stored on the NFS 896 and/or to provideinformation to the QFS 892 for use by servers located within the pod844.

In some implementations, the pod may include one or more databaseinstances 890. The database instance 890 may transmit information to theQFS 892. When information is transmitted to the QFS 892, it may beavailable for use by servers within the pod 844 without requiring anadditional database call.

In some implementations, database information may be transmitted to theindexer 894. Indexer 894 may provide an index of information availablein the database 890 and/or QFS 892. The index information may beprovided to file force servers 886 and/or the QFS 892.

FIG. 9 shows a system diagram illustrating the architecture of amulti-tenant database environment, in accordance with someimplementations. Environment 910 includes a database system 916. Usersystem 912 may be any machine or system that is used by a user to accessthe database system 916. For example, any of user systems 912 can be ahandheld computing device, a mobile phone, a laptop computer, a workstation, and/or a network of computing devices. As illustrated in FIGS.9 and 10, user systems 912 might interact via a network 914 with thedatabase system 916.

A database system, such as system 916, is one that is made available tooutside users that do not need to necessarily be concerned with buildingand/or maintaining the database system, but instead may be available fortheir use when the users need the database system (e.g., on the demandof the users). Some database services may store information from one ormore tenants stored into tables of a common database image to form amulti-tenant database system (MTS).

The terms “database system 916” and “system 916” are usedinterchangeably herein. A database image may include one or moredatabase objects. A relational database management system (RDBMS) or theequivalent may execute storage and retrieval of information against thedatabase object(s). Application platform 918 may be a framework thatallows the applications of system 916 to run, such as the hardwareand/or software, e.g., the operating system. In an implementation,system 916 may include an application platform 918 that enablescreation, managing and executing one or more applications developed bythe provider of the database service, users accessing the databaseservice via user systems 912, or third party application developersaccessing the system 916e via user systems 912.

One arrangement for elements of system 916 is shown in FIG. 9, includinga network interface 920, application platform 918, tenant data storage922 for tenant data, system data storage 924 for system data accessibleto system 916 and possibly multiple tenants, program code 926 forimplementing various functions of system 916, and a process space 928for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes, suchas running applications as part of an application hosting service.Additional processes that may execute on system 916 include databaseindexing processes.

The users of user systems 912 may differ in their respective capacities,and the capacity of a particular user system 912 might be entirelydetermined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. Forexample, where a call center agent is using a particular user system 912to interact with system 916, the user system 912 has the capacitiesallotted to that call center agent. However, while an administrator isusing that user system to interact with system 916, that user system hasthe capacities allotted to that administrator. In systems with ahierarchical role model, users at one permission level may have accessto applications, data, and database information accessible by a lowerpermission level user, but may not have access to certain applications,database information, and data accessible by a user at a higherpermission level. Thus, different users may have different capabilitieswith regard to accessing and modifying application and databaseinformation, depending on a user's security or permission level.

Network 914 is any network or combination of networks of devices thatcommunicate with one another. For example, network 914 can be any one orany combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network),telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, starnetwork, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriateconfiguration. As the most common type of computer network in currentuse is a TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol)network (e.g., the Internet), that network will be used in many of theexamples herein. However, it should be understood that the networks usedin some implementations are not so limited, although TCP/IP is afrequently implemented protocol.

User systems 912 might communicate with system 916 using TCP/IP and, ata higher network level, use other common Internet protocols tocommunicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTPis used, user system 912 might include an HTTP client commonly referredto as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP messages to and from anHTTP server at system 916. Such an HTTP server might be implemented asthe sole network interface between system 916 and network 914, but othertechniques might be used as well or instead. In some implementations,the interface between system 916 and network 914 includes load sharingfunctionality, such as round-robin HTTP request distributors to balanceloads and distribute incoming HTTP requests evenly over a plurality ofservers. At least as for the users that are accessing that server, eachof the plurality of servers has access to the MTS' data; however, otheralternative configurations may be used instead.

In one implementation, system 916, shown in FIG. 9, implements aweb-based customer relationship management (CRM) system. For example, inone implementation, system 916 includes application servers configuredto implement and execute CRM software applications as well as providerelated data, code, forms, web pages and other information to and fromuser systems 912 and to store to, and retrieve from, a database systemrelated data, objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenant system,data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical databaseobject, however, tenant data typically is arranged so that data of onetenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants so that onetenant does not have access to another tenant's data, unless such datais expressly shared. In certain implementations, system 916 implementsapplications other than, or in addition to, a CRM application. Forexample, system 916 may provide tenant access to multiple hosted(standard and custom) applications. User (or third party developer)applications, which may or may not include CRM, may be supported by theapplication platform 918, which manages creation, storage of theapplications into one or more database objects and executing of theapplications in a virtual machine in the process space of the system916.

Each user system 912 could include a desktop personal computer,workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol(WAP) enabled device or any other computing device capable ofinterfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other networkconnection. User system 912 typically runs an HTTP client, e.g., abrowsing program, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer® browser,Mozilla's Firefox® browser, Opera's browser, or a WAP-enabled browser inthe case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like,allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system)of user system 912 to access, process and view information, pages andapplications available to it from system 916 over network 914.

Each user system 912 also typically includes one or more user interfacedevices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touchscreen, pen or the like, for interacting with a graphical user interface(GUI) provided by the browser on a display (e.g., a monitor screen, LCDdisplay, etc.) in conjunction with pages, forms, applications and otherinformation provided by system 916 or other systems or servers. Forexample, the user interface device can be used to access data andapplications hosted by system 916, and to perform searches on storeddata, and otherwise allow a user to interact with various GUI pages thatmay be presented to a user. As discussed above, implementations aresuitable for use with the Internet, which refers to a specific globalinternetwork of networks. However, it should be understood that othernetworks can be used instead of the Internet, such as an intranet, anextranet, a virtual private network (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network,any LAN or WAN or the like.

According to one implementation, each user system 912 and all of itscomponents are operator configurable using applications, such as abrowser, including computer code run using a central processing unitsuch as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, system 916(and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present) andall of their components might be operator configurable usingapplication(s) including computer code to run using a central processingunit such as processor system 917, which may include an Intel Pentium®processor or the like, and/or multiple processor units.

A computer program product implementation includes a machine-readablestorage medium (media) having instructions stored thereon/in which canbe used to program a computer to perform any of the processes of theimplementations described herein. Computer code for operating andconfiguring system 916 to intercommunicate and to process web pages,applications and other data and media content as described herein arepreferably downloaded and stored on a hard disk, but the entire programcode, or portions thereof, may also be stored in any other volatile ornon-volatile memory medium or device, such as a ROM or RAM, or providedon any media capable of storing program code, such as any type ofrotating media including floppy disks, optical discs, digital versatiledisk (DVD), compact disk (CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks,and magnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (including molecular memoryICs), or any type of media or device suitable for storing instructionsand/or data. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof,may be transmitted and downloaded from a software source over atransmission medium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, ortransmitted over any other conventional network connection (e.g.,extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using any communication medium and protocols(e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet, etc.). It will also be appreciatedthat computer code for implementing implementations can be implementedin any programming language that can be executed on a client systemand/or server or server system such as, for example, C, C++, HTML, anyother markup language, Java™, JavaScript®, ActiveX®, any other scriptinglanguage, such as VBScript, and many other programming languages as arewell known may be used. (Java™ is a trademark of Sun Microsystems®,Inc.).

According to one implementation, each system 916 is configured toprovide web pages, forms, applications, data and media content to user(client) systems 912 to support the access by user systems 912 astenants of system 916. As such, system 916 provides security mechanismsto keep each tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. If morethan one MTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to oneanother (e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus),or they may be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g.,one or more servers located in city A and one or more servers located incity B). As used herein, each MTS could include logically and/orphysically connected servers distributed locally or across one or moregeographic locations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant toinclude a computer system, including processing hardware and processspace(s), and an associated storage system and database application(e.g., OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art.

It should also be understood that “server system” and “server” are oftenused interchangeably herein. Similarly, the database object describedherein can be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, acollection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online oroffline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include adistributed database or storage network and associated processingintelligence.

FIG. 10 shows another system diagram further illustrating thearchitecture of a multi-tenant database environment further illustratingsystem 916 and various interconnections, in accordance with someimplementations. User system 912 may include processor system 912A,memory system 912B, input system 912C, and output system 912D. FIG. 10shows network 914 and system 916. The system 916 may include tenant datastorage 922, tenant data 923, system data storage 924, system data 925,User Interface (UI) 1030, Application Program Interface (API) 1032,PL/SOQL 1034, save routines 1036, application setup mechanism 1038,applications servers 1000 ₁-1000 _(N), system process space 1002, tenantprocess spaces 1004, tenant management process space 1010, tenantstorage area 1012, user storage 1014, and application metadata 1016. Inother implementations, environment 910 may not have the same elements asthose listed above and/or may have other elements instead of, or inaddition to, those listed above.

User system 912, network 914, system 916, tenant data storage 922, andsystem data storage 924 are discussed with FIG. 9. Regarding user system912, processor system 912A may be any combination of processors. Memorysystem 912B may be any combination of one or more memory devices, shortterm, and/or long term memory. Input system 912C may be any combinationof input devices, such as keyboards, mice, trackballs, scanners,cameras, and/or interfaces to networks. Output system 912D may be anycombination of output devices, such as monitors, printers, and/orinterfaces to networks. The system 916 may include a network interface920 implemented as a set of HTTP application servers 1000 (shown in FIG.10), an application platform 918, tenant data storage 922, and systemdata storage 924 Also shown in FIG. 10 is system process space 1002,including individual tenant process spaces 1004 and a tenant managementprocess space 1010. Each application server 1000 may be configured toinclude tenant data storage 922 and the tenant data 923 therein, andsystem data storage 924 and the system data 925 therein to serverequests of user systems 912. The tenant data 923 might be divided intoindividual tenant storage areas 1012, which can be either a physicalarrangement and/or a logical arrangement of data. Within each tenantstorage area 1012, user storage 1014 and application metadata 1016 mightbe similarly allocated for each user. For example, a copy of a user'smost recently used (MRU) items might be stored to user storage 1014.Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organization that is atenant might be stored to tenant storage area 1012. A UI 1030 provides auser interface and an API 1032 provides an application programmerinterface to system 916 resident processes to users and/or developers atuser systems 912. The tenant data and the system data may be stored invarious databases, such as Oracle™ databases.

Application platform 918 includes an application setup mechanism 1038that supports application developers' creation and management ofapplications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage922 by save routines 1036 for execution by subscribers as tenant processspaces 1004 managed by tenant management process 1010 for example.Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL 1034 thatprovides a programming language style interface extension to API 1032. Adetailed description of some PL/SOQL language implementations isdiscussed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,478, titled METHODAND SYSTEM FOR ALLOWING ACCESS TO DEVELOPED APPLICATIONS VIA AMULTI-TENANT ON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, by Craig Weissman, filed Sep.21, 2007, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety andfor all purposes. Invocations to applications may be detected by systemprocesses, which manage retrieving application metadata 1016 for thesubscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata as anapplication in a virtual machine.

Each application server 1000 may be communicably coupled to databasesystems, e.g., having access to system data 925 and tenant data 923, viaa different network connection. For example, one application server10001 might be coupled via the network 914 (e.g., the Internet), anotherapplication server 1000N-1 might be coupled via a direct network link,and another application server 1000N might be coupled by yet a differentnetwork connection. Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol(TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating between applicationservers 1000 and the database system. However, other transport protocolsmay be used to optimize the system depending on the network interconnectused.

In certain implementations, each application server 1000 is configuredto handle requests for any user associated with any organization that isa tenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and removeapplication servers from the server pool at any time for any reason,there is preferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization toa specific application server 1000. In one implementation, therefore, aninterface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the applicationservers 1000 and the user systems 912 to distribute requests to theapplication servers 1000. In one implementation, the load balancer usesa least connections algorithm to route user requests to the applicationservers 1000. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as roundrobin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, incertain implementations, three consecutive requests from the same usercould hit three different application servers 1000, and three requestsfrom different users could hit the same application server 1000. In thismanner, system 916 is multi-tenant, wherein system 916 handles storageof, and access to, different objects, data and applications acrossdisparate users and organizations.

As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs asales force where each call center agent uses system 916 to manage theirsales process. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data,customer follow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data,etc., all applicable to that user's personal sales process (e.g., intenant data storage 922). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since allof the data and the applications to access, view, modify, report,transmit, calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a usersystem having nothing more than network access, the user can manage hisor her sales efforts and cycles from any of many different user systems.For example, if a call center agent is visiting a customer and thecustomer has Internet access in their lobby, the call center agent canobtain critical updates as to that customer while waiting for thecustomer to arrive in the lobby.

While each user's data might be separate from other users' dataregardless of the employers of each user, some data might beorganization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users orall of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, theremight be some data structures managed by system 916 that are allocatedat the tenant level while other data structures might be managed at theuser level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants includingpossible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keepdata, applications, and application use separate. Also, because manytenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their ownsystem, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions thatmay be implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data andtenant specific data, system 916 might also maintain system level datausable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data mightinclude industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharableamong tenants.

In certain implementations, user systems 912 (which may be clientmachines/systems) communicate with application servers 1000 to requestand update system-level and tenant-level data from system 916 that mayrequire sending one or more queries to tenant data storage 922 and/orsystem data storage 924. System 916 (e.g., an application server 1000 insystem 916) automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g.,SQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information. Systemdata storage 924 may generate query plans to access the requested datafrom the database.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, suchas a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefinedcategories. A “table” is one representation of a data object, and may beused herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and customobjects according to some implementations. It should be understood that“table” and “object” may be used interchangeably herein. Each tablegenerally contains one or more data categories logically arranged ascolumns or fields in a viewable schema. Each row or record of a tablecontains an instance of data for each category defined by the fields.For example, a CRM database may include a table that describes acustomer with fields for basic contact information such as name,address, phone number, fax number, etc. Another table might describe apurchase order, including fields for information such as customer,product, sale price, date, etc. In some multi-tenant database systems,standard entity tables might be provided for use by all tenants. For CRMdatabase applications, such standard entities might include tables foraccount, contact, lead, and opportunity data, each containingpre-defined fields. It should be understood that the word “entity” mayalso be used interchangeably herein with “object” and “table.”

In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to createand store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standardentities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standardobjects, including custom index fields. U.S. Pat. No. 7,779,039, titledCUSTOM ENTITIES AND FIELDS IN A MULTI-TENANT DATABASE SYSTEM, byWeissman, et al., and which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety and for all purposes, teaches systems and methods for creatingcustom objects as well as customizing standard objects in a multi-tenantdatabase system. In some implementations, for example, all custom entitydata rows are stored in a single multi-tenant physical table, which maycontain multiple logical tables per organization. In someimplementations, multiple “tables” for a single customer may actually bestored in one large table and/or in the same table as the data of othercustomers.

These and other aspects of the disclosure may be implemented by varioustypes of hardware, software, firmware, etc. For example, some featuresof the disclosure may be implemented, at least in part, bymachine-readable media that include program instructions, stateinformation, etc., for performing various operations described herein.Examples of program instructions include both machine code, such asproduced by a compiler, and files containing higher-level code that maybe executed by the computer using an interpreter. Examples ofmachine-readable media include, but are not limited to, magnetic mediasuch as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media suchas CD-ROM disks; magneto-optical media; and hardware devices that arespecially configured to store and perform program instructions, such asread-only memory devices (“ROM”) and random access memory (“RAM”).

While one or more implementations and techniques are described withreference to an implementation in which a service cloud console isimplemented in a system having an application server providing a frontend for a database service capable of supporting multiple tenants, theone or more implementations and techniques are not limited tomulti-tenant databases nor deployment on application servers.Implementations may be practiced using other database architectures,i.e., ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scopeof the implementations claimed.

Any of the above implementations may be used alone or together with oneanother in any combination. Although various implementations may havebeen motivated by various deficiencies with the prior art, which may bediscussed or alluded to in one or more places in the specification, theimplementations do not necessarily address any of these deficiencies. Inother words, different implementations may address differentdeficiencies that may be discussed in the specification. Someimplementations may only partially address some deficiencies or just onedeficiency that may be discussed in the specification, and someimplementations may not address any of these deficiencies.

While various implementations have been described herein, it should beunderstood that they have been presented by way of example only, and notlimitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present applicationshould not be limited by any of the implementations described herein,but should be defined only in accordance with the following andlater-submitted claims and their equivalents.

1. A method for secured inter-application communication, comprising:transferring information from a first application in a mobile computingdevice to a second application in the mobile computing device using asecond socket associated with the second application, the second socketopened by an operating system based on a request by the secondapplication.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising communicatinginformation about the second socket to the first application.
 3. Themethod of claim 2, further comprising: transferring information from thesecond application in the mobile computing device to the firstapplication in the mobile computing device using a first socketassociated with the first application, the first socket opened by theoperating system based on a request by the first application.
 4. Themethod of claim 3, further comprising communicating information aboutthe first socket to the second application.
 5. The method of claim 4,further comprising associating the first socket with the second socket.6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: assigning a first portidentification (ID) to the first socket and a second port ID to thesecond socket, the first port ID and the second port ID associated withthe mobile computing device.
 7. A computer-implemented method foraccessing network resources using single sign-in information,comprising: receiving by a first application in a mobile computingdevice sign-in information from a user; and enabling the user to sign into a second application with the first application to allow the secondapplication to access network resources on behalf of the user from aresource server based on (a) a first application identification (ID) ofthe second application, (b) the user authorizing the second applicationto the resource server, and (c) receiving an access token from theresource server to allow the second application to access the networkresources, the mobile computing device coupled with the resource servervia a network.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein the first applicationID is associated with an application distribution server where thesecond application is downloaded from, the mobile computing devicecoupled with the application distribution server via the network.
 9. Themethod of claim 8, further comprising communicating the firstapplication ID to a verification server to verify that the secondapplication is a trusted application, the mobile computing devicecoupled with the verification server via the network.
 10. The method ofclaim 8, wherein the second application is configured to generate anencryption key pair including a public key and a private key, andwherein the public key is communicated to the first application alongwith a second application identification (ID) assigned to the secondapplication by the resource server during registration of the secondapplication with the resource server.
 11. The method of claim 10,further comprising: submitting a request, by the first application, foran authorization from the resource server, wherein the request includes(a) the second application ID assigned to the second application and thepublic key, and (b) a redirect link to an entry point in the secondapplication; and receiving, by the first application, an authorizationgrant from the resource server based on the second application ID havingbeen verified by the resource server.
 12. The method of claim 11,further comprising: receiving, by the first application, anauthorization by the user to authorize the second application to accessthe resources from the resource server on behalf of the user; andcommunicating, by the first application, the authorization by the userand the authorization grant to the resource server.
 13. The method ofclaim 12, further comprising: receiving, by the first application, anaccess token from the resource server, the access token to be used bythe second application to access the resources in the resource server onbehalf of the user; encrypting, by the first application, the accesstoken using the public key received from the second application; andcommunicating the encrypted access token, by the first application, tothe second application.
 14. The method of claim 14, further comprising:decryping the encrypted access token, by the second application, usingthe private key to generate a decrypted access token; using thedecrypted access token, by the second application, to access the networkresources from the resource server; and delivering the networkresources, by the second application, to the user.
 15. The method ofclaim 14, wherein communication between the first application and thesecond application is based on an inter-process communication (IPC)protocol.
 16. A computer program product, comprising a computer usablemedium having a computer readable program code embodied therein, thecomputer readable program code adapted to be executed to implement amethod comprising: receiving by a first application in a mobilecomputing device sign-in information from a user; and enabling the userto sign in to a second application with the first application to accessnetwork resources from a resource server based on (a) a firstapplication identification (ID) of the second application, (b) the userauthorizing the second application to the resource server, and (c)receiving an access token from the resource server to enable the secondapplication to access the network resources, the mobile computing devicecoupled with the resource server via a network.
 17. The computer programproduct of claim 16, wherein the first application ID is associated withan application distribution server where the second application isdownloaded from, the mobile computing device coupled with theapplication distribution server via the network.
 18. The computerprogram product of claim 17, further comprising communicating the firstapplication ID to a verification server to verify that the secondapplication is a trusted application, the mobile computing devicecoupled with the verification server via the network.
 19. The computerprogram product of claim 18, wherein the second application isconfigured to generate an encryption key pair including a public key anda private key, and wherein the public key is communicated to the firstapplication along with a second application identification (ID) assignedto the second application by the resource server during registration ofthe second application with the resource server.
 20. The computerprogram product of claim 19, further comprising: submitting a request,by the first application, for an authorization from the resource server,wherein the request includes (a) the second application ID assigned tothe second application and the public key, and (b) a redirect link to anentry point in the second application; receiving, by the firstapplication, an authorization grant from the resource server based onthe second application ID having been verified by the resource server.receiving, by the first application, an authorization by the user toauthorize the second application to access the resources from theresource server on behalf of the user; and communicating, by the firstapplication, the authorization by the user and the authorization grantto the resource server.
 21. The computer program product of claim 20,further comprising: receiving, by the first application, an access tokenfrom the resource server, the access token to be used by the secondapplication to access the resources in the resource server on behalf ofthe user; encrypting, by the first application, the access token usingthe public key received from the second application; and communicatingthe encrypted access token, by the first application, to the secondapplication.
 22. The computer program product of claim 21, furthercomprising: decryping the encrypted access token, by the secondapplication, using the private key to generate a decrypted access token;using the decrypted access token, by the second application, to accessthe network resources from the resource server; and delivering thenetwork resources, by the second application, to the user.